After spending Saturday night in beautiful Sparta, Kentucky ... what an evening.
As I turned up to head into the infield after the race ended, I look up and see this orange car looping itself like a Kings Island roller coaster *after* the race had ended.
My own notes from the end of the race
Dario Franchitti is truly, now, the "Flying Scot" -- as his championship chase has gone sideways, upside-down, into the grass and now, into a roller-coaster-style loop-de-loop after running into Kosuke Matsuura after the race (now that Jeff Simmons is no longer around to run into Kosuke, somebody has to).
Dario's two mistakes:
1. Almost ramming Danica Patrick coming into the pits on Lap 178, forcing him into the grass and over the cone at pit-in, causing a nose-cone replacement and eighth place (a 21-point swing in the standings).
Dario's take: "I locked up over the bumps coming into the pits."
2. Running right over Kosuke Matsuura at the end of the race, after Kosuke slowed down, and getting himself airborne because he rammed a car going 50 mph slower.
“(Matsuura) slowed down quite rightly after the race, I didn’t realize it was the checkered and I hit him,” Franchitti said. “It was completely my mistake. It was the second one I made in the race and I’m pretty upset with myself right now.”
"I’m pretty disgusted with myself right now. I’ve made my feelings clear on last week’s incident, on where the blame is (*ahem, Dan Wheldon*), but this one, it’s all me."
A spin by the garage after the race showed a completely torn-up racecar ... the front end looked like you'd expect a nose that had just experienced a head-first visit with asphalt. Completely mangled, scuffed, wires hanging everywhere ...
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Where's Tony?
In Victory Lane.
In the midst of Dario getting his IndyCar pilot's license, TK has spent the last two weeks getting the big check and the trophy.
“Nobody was thinking about Dario and Dixon at Indy,” Kanaan said. “They were all talking about me and (Sam) Hornish and Helio, and they finished 1-2 (at Indy). Now, everybody is talking about Dario and Dixon, and nobody’s talking about me. I like that. I have no pressure. It’s going to be hard for me to win this championship. The best thing I can do is win races and see what happens. For me, it’s just keep doing what we’re doing."
The points chase ... Dario still leads, but is only eight points ahead of Dixon. TK gained 29 points on Dario with a 53-point day Sunday, and now is only 52 points behind with three races to go. With two of the three drivers in the chase, AGR has pretty good odds. TK wants to make sure they stay that way.
"I still want my team to win this championship. Whether it's me or Dario, we need to win this championship. I will do whatever it takes -- if I need to help my teammate to do that -- and I think vice-versa. Right now, I think the focus is to get Andretti Green to win another championship."
Meanwhile, Scott is on Dario's rear end.
"TK on the restarts, along with Dario, just blew around the outside of me," Dixon said. "Both those guys were so fast. It was frustrating. We were able to split them up and keep Dario behind me, which was the main thing. And then we had that pit stop there where Danica had her problem and Dario ran off into the grass and maybe wrecked his wing a little bit. It was finally their night to lose. We made good gains in the points today."
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Deja vu
Not just a deja vu race for Dario, but also for Danica Patrick, whose day ended with a tire problem late in the race -- just as it had essentially done last week.
Again, Danica was competitive. Again, she was getting better toward the end of the race, maybe to challenge for the front. This time, she looped the car coming out of the pits -- bringing out the final yellow -- and then, a couple of laps later, spun into the wall under yellow after the tire blew.
A safety truck was a sitting duck on the backstretch, and Danica missed it -- I'm still trying to figure out how.
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Good Vision
A.J. Foyt IV finished third -- his first career top five. He led as late as Lap 191, when TK blew around him on a restart, but got there largely because of the work of his pit crew.
Tomas Scheckter spent much of the day in the top three and finished in the top five. Ed Carpenter was seventh.
It was possibly the best race Vision has had, the first time the team had ever put three cars in the Top 10. And it was definitely Foyt's best race in his first year after returning to the series full-time. He had earlier raced a couple of years for his grandfather's team.
"I did struggle my first couple of years," the younger Foyt said. "I'm learning a little more about these cars and the setup of these cars, learning more what I like. This is my first year in the IndyCar series working with an engineer, and that has helped a lot."
In fact, coupled with RLR driver Scott Sharp's sixth-place finish, four of the top seven cars were from outside the "big three" teams.
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Mostly clean driving ... mostly
Brian Barnhart put everyone on probation coming into the weekend. There were still problems -- Dario's expensive lap-counting lapse being by far the worst -- but in general, it was a clean race.
Danica Patrick and AJIV were racing side-by-side early, and finally fell in line. As A.J. said, "there's no point in racing side-by-side for 10th place on the 10th lap." After they fell in line, they began to catch up.
TK used a Dixon-Dario battle for 2nd to pull away before the final yellow. There was clean racing in packs when there were packs.
The only real problem came with TK and Helio Castroneves, as Kanaan tried to lap Spiderman. Helio wouldn't give an inch, and the two touched on the backstretch. They managed to keep going.
“The whole league since Watkins Glen has been getting good press, but we’ve been in the press for the wrong reasons,” Kanaan said. “I don’t want to create any more ... I’m going to have a chat in Portuguese with him so you won’t understand what I say. We’ll chat. We’ll sort it out. We’ve known each other for 23 years. It’s like a marriage. We’ll get home and sort it out.”
The shoes went to the other feet ... last year, TK was a lap down and racing Helio hard for position. Helio was in the points chase -- Kanaan was not. The two old friends disagreed over that issue for a while, but patched things up earlier this year.
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Father's Day
TK dedicated the race win to his late father, whose birthday would have been this weekend. He also noted that Sunday is Brazil's Father's Day, and the expectant father expected a nice gift from his wife.
Win No. 4 on the year was a nice gift for himself, too.
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One more note: As of Monday, the daily update will come in the mid-to-late afternoon, instead of in the morning, thanks to a change in my work schedule.
**Thanks to Eric North for the photos**
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